


Tell My Love to Wreck It All

by talia_ae



Category: Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:58:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talia_ae/pseuds/talia_ae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She gives herself three months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell My Love to Wreck It All

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Minuit, for Goldenlake's Merry Ficmas Exchange 2012.

  
She gives herself three months.  
  
(actually: three and a half).  
  
She thinks if it had been two—because eight weeks is nothing, after all, only an insignificant fraction of a year—then leaving would have, could have been easier.   
  
It was supposed to be, anyways, but she always knew that she could have either something or nothing, and maybe it’s the coward’s way out, but she chose halfway.  
  
-  
  
The _problem_ is that Kel wasn’t ever supposed to be that person, the one who her detractors jeered about: a whore who slept her way to knighthood, underserving and no better than one of the Corus flower girls. She says as much to him, the first time they spend the night together, because he’d said as much, once, and it had stung then as it did now.  
  
“But you earned your knighthood,” Wyldon says, face drawn. He traces a finger down her arm, his touch light over the meandering scars that remain from the griffin, years later, and he sighs, continues. “And my wife is dead.”  
  
It’s the unyielding constant between them, the thing that allowed them to do this in the first point: if it is anything, at least it isn’t adultery. She is no one’s mistress, and he isn’t an affair.  
  
-  
  
“You do know that when I say you’re beautiful, I’m being honest.” It’s said in the frank tone of a man with a scar that bystanders notice first, before face or lack of hair or level eyes. “I think you doubt it.”  
  
“You’re the type,” Kel says lightly. It isn’t _intentional_ , she knows that he isn’t making a joke of it, and yet. “You think all fighters are beautiful for what they do, if they are good enough at it.”  
  
“Mmm.” He hums, tugging on a short lock of hair. “Not exactly. A soldier isn’t beautiful—glorious, perhaps, for short moments, and certainly effective. _You_ , my dear, are the very definition of poetry in motion. Even when you’re fighting with your pigsticker.”  
  
Whatever she’d say in response gets stuck in her throat and she just kisses him once, on the forehead; enough to change the conversation, though she’s never been that type.  
  
-  
  
The first time that they sleep together, it scares her: not because he is harsh, but because of how much he wants her.  
  
She isn’t a virgin—Dom and a night with a touch too much wine had dealt with that several months ago; it had been fun and not something she had regretted. Waking up next to him, he’d kissed her twice and promised he’d still respect her if he came under her command. It hadn’t changed anything, because he _does_ still respect her, and she’d been glad. Wyldon is—it’s obvious from that first kiss, deeper and more desperate than anything she’s ever had before, even with Cleon at his neediest, that this is so much different.  
  
His hands are warm and gentle, but it sends shivers up and down her spine all the same.   
  
She thinks he says he loves her, but she’s grateful that it’s said quietly enough that she can pretend not to hear.  
  
-  
  
The problem, she knows, isn’t that she should want him more. It’s that he should want her less.  
  
She says as much to him the next morning, when the sunlight is tracing the planes of his back, and it isn’t that she doesn’t want him, because she _does_. But there are other things, greater things, and it’s not just her reputation or his, it’s all that they have to do in the world, all that’s ahead for both of them.  
  
Wyldon doesn’t say anything, his mouth turned into that familiar hard line.  
  
“I’m not saying that I _don’t_ ,” Kel says finally. “I’m just—“  
  
“I know, lady knight,” he whispers against her lips, before he pulls into a kiss that’s the same as before, too deep and too much, devouring; she has no idea what else he could have said.  
  
They have sex again that morning and she leaves a bruise on his hip where her hands dug in. He traces the veins in her arms, her shoulders, trails his fingertips over the low, taut muscles of her stomach, making her gasp, and Kel thinks _but I could want this_.  
  
-  
  
“I’m serious when I say you should want me less,” she mutters, but she’s saying it against his lips as he bends her over his desk, stacks of reports sent flying to the floor. “This is _exactly_ the type of thing my old training master would have warned against.”  
  
“Your old training master was a fool,” Wyldon laughs, nipping at the line of her throat. “A silly man, really.”  
  
“Breaking all the rules he set,” Kel says, pulling at the ties of his shirt. She tosses it on the floor, next to the mess of papers they’ve created. She kisses him, a brush of lips. “Make sure the door is locked.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” he mutters, hands gripping her hips. “I’m might be a fool, but I’m not foolish enough to—oh, _Keladry_.”  
  
-  
  
She gives herself three months, and then she asks Lord Raoul if there’s space for her to ride with the Own.  
  
“There always is,” he says, eyes dark and serious. She’s sitting across the desk from him, hands folded in her lap. “Should I press you, or is it one of those times where it’s best to leave it be?”  
  
“The latter, I think,” Kel murmurs. She looks up. “Thank you.”  
  
“Kel,” Raoul says, when she’s almost out of his office, hand on the doorknob. Sometimes she wishes that he didn’t know her so well, if only because it might make things like this easier. “I’m here, if you—“ his face is red, but earnest and open. “If you need to talk about anything—I know how Queenscove gets.”  
  
“Thank you, milord,” she says. “I’ll keep it in mind.”  
  
-  
  
“I’m riding out in two weeks,” Kel tells Wyldon.  
  
He understands.


End file.
